Love is a Losing Game
by PaleLittleGirl
Summary: HP SS.  They kissed again, and the blossoms fell, and Severus wondered why he suddenly felt so cold. Warnings: Language, Sexual Situations, Slash. Please R & R.


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**Summary:**** HP/ SS. They kissed again, and the blossoms fell, and Severus wondered why he suddenly felt so cold**. **Warnings: Language, Sexual Situations, Slash. Please R & R. **

**A/N- The idea for this story just popped into my head, and I wrote it in about four hours, listening to Amy Winehouse the entire time, and the story is named after one of her songs. It's AU, obviously, and Sirius is still alive. I may write a sequel, we'll see. **

His dark hair was mussed and stood up in every direction, and his emerald eyes glittered hysterically as he entered Snape's flat. It was midwinter, the season of tragedy, and he was only wearing a thin black jacket to protect himself from the bitter cold. Despite his shivering, The Boy Who Lived looked happy as he spoke, but there was an almost manic edge to his words.

"I'm sorry if I woke you, I know it's late...but I had to talk to you, Severus, I just had to... I've had an awful premonition today, I was sitting in a coffee shop, and...this horrible feeling came over me..."

He continued, but Severus barely listened as he pulled the young man roughly inside and slammed the door. Harry was very intelligent, but sometimes he was siezed by silly flights of fancy that got in the way of common sense. "You'll catch your death in that cold, where in hell is that damned coat I bought you?" he demanded as Harry peeled off his gloves.

"At Grimmauld Place, I came straight here from the shop..."

"Why in the world were you sitting in a coffee shop at one in the morning?"

Harry looked surprised at the question. "I don't know...thinking, I suppose..."

Severus shook his head as he led the younger wizard into his sitting room. The Boy Who Lived sat comfortably on the oldest sofa in the room, a black lumpy thing that was in desperate need of a replacement. The room was dimly lit, as usual, and it exaggerated Harry's hollowed cheekbones and sharp jaw, hiding his green eyes and the warmth that could be found in them. It was slightly unnerving, but Snape shook the feeling off.

"Would you like something to drink?" he asked Harry calmly, hoping in vain that his demeanor would rub off on the boy.

"A drink? Sev, weren't you listening to me? I've had this horrible-"

Snape waved his hand sharply as he sat across from his companion. "Calm down! Just..._calm down_. How much coffee did you _drink_?"

Harry's grin lit up his entire face, and his laugh seemed to dissapate the tension he had been holding in himself. "A lot, actually."

"I can tell."

They smiled at each other, and the air almost crackled between them. Snape felt his insides flip as he stared at the boy. No, he wasn't a boy anymore, he hadn't been for quite some time. Defeating the Dark Lord had changed him forever, had aged him somehow. But he was young still, only twenty.

"Why don't you tell me what happened at the shop?" He didn't really want to talk now, but it seemed important to Harry.

The Boy Who Lived drew a deep breath before he spoke. "You'll think it's silly... Well, I was sitting there, reading the Prophet, and then...it felt like my heart turned to ice, for a moment, and I felt like something horrible would happen to us, like we wouldn't be together, and, Severus, I just... I feel like, if we don't run away together, _as soon as possible_, something awful will happen!"

Snape stared at him.

"Don't look at me like that... We always talk of a vacation to New Zealand, why don't we go? Tonight?"

"Harry..." Severus paused as he collected his thoughts. "You realize you're training to become an Auror? You do rememer you can't just stop your classes for a week or two? And my work for the minister happens to be very important to me, you understand. Perhaps in the summer we'll go, but not now."

Harry's face was the picture of heartbreak as he listened to Snape's words. "I don't care about my fucking classes! Please, Sev. I just... _know_, alright, I know something terrible will happen... And the minister, he won't care if you leave for a while! Please, we have to leave, tonight..." unbidden tears came to his shining eyes and he blinked them away angrily.

Severus felt a sudden mixture of pity, anger at feeling pity, and tiredness. He really was to old to deal with the whims of a twenty year old. "How will you explain your absence to the Order? Or do you think you can just tell them about us and they'll say, 'Jolly good, Harry, never took you for a faggot, but you and old Snivellus make such a _cute _couple!' ? Well?"

Harry flinched at the word 'faggot'. Snape almost instantly regretted his words, but, damn it, the boy needed to get his head out of the clouds. Despite everything that had happened in the war, the Order still regared him with a thinly veiled feeling of suspicion. And the fact that Harry was in love with a man, let alone it being _him_, would not go over at all well. Some people were more liberal than others, but Snape didn't imagine anyone in the Order being very accepting of their relationship, to put it mildly. Sirius would probably try to kill him to 'protect' his beloved godson, and he very much doubted that anyone would try to intervene.

Harry looked like he had just been punched in the gut as he stared at the man he loved. Everything he said was horribly, damnably true. But none of it mattered, he realized this with the certainty of youth. There was nothing wrong with the way he felt, and the idea of being seperated from Severus galled him. "I don't care what the Order says. They could burn all my stuff and kick me out, I don't give a damn. I just want to be with you, and I just want to be happy. Fuck em'. Fuck all of them."

Something in his tone made Snape take notice. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Harry nodded gravely, despite the sudden lightness in his heart. "Dead serious."

Severus shrugged. "Well, what are we waiting for? I have some things I need to finish up for the minister, but I should be done by tomorrow. I'll pick you up tomorrow night, at eight o' clock sharp, at Grimmauld Place. If that's where you want me to get you, that is." He smiled at Harry, suddenly happier than he had ever been.

Harrry's eyes widened and his heart beat so hard he was surprised the older man could not see it sticking out of his chest. With a smooth, fluid motion perfected by lots of practice, he lept into Snape's lap and kissed him square on the mouth.

"That would be perfect," he said as he pulled away. "Just perfect."

Before he left the flat, Severus gave him one of his good winter coats, but he still felt the bitter cold as he stepped outside.

* * *

"Do you love me, Severus?"

The Potions Master grabbed her hand and kissed the other side of her wrist, reveling in the faint sweet taste of her porcelain skin. "Yes," he whispered huskily.

"For how long have you loved me?"

Snape clutched her hand in his. "Since the first day I met you," he hissed in reply.

She turned her beautiful face toward him, and she smiled at him and his insides twisted. "Kiss me, then," she said, and he pulled her toward him and their lips met passionately. She ran her thin fingers through his dark mane, and he twirled a lock of her fine blond hair in his hand.

"Marry me," she whispered as they separerated. "Marry me today."

He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her to him, barely feeling the bitterly cold wind on his face. Pink blossoms fell from the tree they stood under, swirling around them, enchanted and immune to the snow that fell with them. He had loved her for thirty years, and now she wanted to marry him. A vision of Harry wafted through his mind, twenty year old Harry with his temper, his unpredictability, and the future that he was prepared to turn his back on. Their dream of New Zealand faded from him, and the love they had shared; they had never been right for each other, he knew that now. Harry would recover from this, certainly he would, and live on. Perhaps he would marry that Weasley girl that pined after him.

"Severus?"

He loved the way she said his name, with that lilting voice he often wished he could record and listen to at his own leisure. "Of course," he whispered to her, "We'll get married today, in the country, at your estate."

She smiled up at him. "Tell me you love me."

He looked down at her, and felt as if he would melt, standing there under her gaze. "I love you." They kissed again, and the blossoms fell, and Severus wondered why he suddenly felt so cold.

* * *

Harry glanced at the clock for the hundredth time. It was eight thirty four, and Severus was late. His heart beat in his ears as he stood in his room, bags packed and ready for the trip. He had turned off his light optimistically at eight, and hadn't bothered turning it back on. It felt like he was admitting that Snape wasn't coming, and he was coming. He promised. He stood there, in the dark, pushing back tears and dread.

Everyone else was downstairs, enjoying a late dinner, laughing and teasing, oblivious to Harry's impending departure. What would they say, he wondered, what would they do, when Severus came to pick him up?

They had tried to get him to eat, but Harry had been so nervous his appetite had been lost, so he had gone upstairs to stare helplessly at his suitcases, the ones that had been packed the moment he came home.

8:42.

_He wasn't coming. _

Harry slowly sat on his bed, back straight and handsome face stoic. He knew Severus had thought the bad feeling was silly, but he seemed to understand how important it had been to him, hadn't he?

He laid back, picturing Snape holed up in his new office at the ministry, unable to leave. Perhaps that was it, perhaps he had underestimated all the work that needed to be done before he could leave.

These thoughts and others swirled in his mind and he closed his eyes, clinging to the image of New Zealand in the winter, the heaven that they would be in by tomorrow. He dozed, trying to recall any time Severus had told him he loved him.

"Harry!"

Harry opened his eyes slowly and looked at his clock reflexively.

7:39.

Severus was early, he thought groggily. Good thing all my stuff is packed...

"HARRY! COME DOWN HERE!" Sirius called.

So Sev had told them, thought Harry, not noticing it was light outside as he stumbled down the stairs. Everyone must be pissed. He was surprised at the smiling faces of everyone as he came to the breakfast table, and the fog slowly lifted from his mind as he saw the light pour in from the windows. So he hadn't come, then, Harry thought numbly.

Sirius looked amused as he held the morning's issue of _The Daily Prophet _in his hands. "Harry, my boy, you've got to listen to this!"

Harry frowned and then caught a glimse of the front page.

_No._

Sirius read from the paper, eyes lit up like a child's at the fact that he would never have to see Snape again, or at least not as often. "_'Severus Snape and Narcissa Malfoy in Surprise Wedding! The couple were wed in a simple ceremony at the Malfoy estate yesterday afternoon...Narcissa has been single since the death of her husband Lucius three years ago...The loving couple were all smiles as photographers took their pictures...they will be living in the Malfoy estate, which is to be rennamed...' " _

Harry didn't realize he had fainted until he opened his eyes and he was on the floor, with half the house standing over him and trying to help him up.

"Just let me lie here a second," he heard himself say.

It was odd that he was lying so close to the fireplace, he thought emptily. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this cold.

**End Story. **

**A/N- Please review and tell me what you think! **


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